March 18, 2010 Visit with Jim Mullane at Dixon’s Apples
We spent about 1 ½ hours with him. He was very gracious. The orchard is located in a canyon which usually has a breeze coming down the canyon. This helps with frost protection. The elevation is about 6000 feet. His wife’s grandfather Dixon came from Colorado in the 1940’s with the intention of starting an orchard. He found a wild apple tree in the canyon and grafted it to a golden delicious apple and created the Champaign apple which is patented. It is a sweet, crisp apple. When you bite it there is almost a phiz like champaign. Their original watering source was a spring up the canyon but in drought years there wasn’t enough water. They drilled a well about 1100 feet deep and set a pump at 850 feet that pumps 300 gallon per minute. They water 55 aces of apples (about 6000-7000) trees with micro sprayers that cover a 15 foot radius. There is one head on each side of the trees. He irrigates for 14 hours which applies 2 inches of water once per week. All irrigation is done at night in order to eliminate evaporation. He is considering changing to applying 4 inches every two weeks. The newer trees are planted 12 feet apart in 18 foot rows. He said he will probably change that to 15’ spacing on 20’ rows. The poly pipe is located on a berm with the trees with the sprayers coming out of the poly pipe. It waters a 30’ diameter area on each side of each tree. He can irrigate the entire 55 acres in 4 days. There is a mixture of grass and weeds between the rows which is mowed monthly. He is not organic and sprays for bugs that destroy the apples. He buys all his irrigation supplies from Sprinkler World in Tucson from Joe Dean. He said there are lots of native bees in the canyon and they don’t have a problem with pollination. The trees bloom in April which can vary a lot due to the weather.
He has 3 full time employees. At harvest time he hires 50 additional workers for 2 weeks and pays them by the hour to pick the apples. Most are native American who are fire fighters in the summer. They harvest the last two weeks of September. The apples are dumped in pallet bins, brought to the packing building, dumped in a machine that washes, rinses, and polishes the apples. They are graded to their own standards for weight and size, placed in bags or boxes. They sell all they can produce in two weeks at retail prices of $.90 pound. I was told there is a 5 mile line of cars waiting to buy apples and it takes 2 hours to get to the apple store. Last year they made 8000 gallons of apple cider from the culls. They use an ultra violet pasteurizing system. Some years they will make up to 20,000 gallon of cider. The Albuquerque Journal and the TV station are smoozed with free apples and they get free publicity which results in tremendous local support. They do not ship any apples, but their customers ship them all over the world. A private nursery does all their grafting and growing for them and they will not sell their patented apple trees. John and I estimated that they gross at least $500,000 per year (on 55 acres). It is apparent he has the resources to expand and do things the right way. Sadly he and his wife don’t own the land. Her grandfather, unknown to the family, gifted the land to the University of New Mexico. Then through a trade the State Land Office now owns the land and they lease it. But, their improvements are worth millions.
March 18, 2010 Visit with Antonio Trujillo (Guadalupe Vineyards) at San Fidel
John and I arrived about 4 PM and met Antonio in the wine tasting room. He offered us a taste but we declined. In a previous life he was a Catholic Priest and now is the principle of the local Catholic school. He married about 10 years ago and started the vineyard soon after. Some of his families have been in the area since the mid 1800’s (Mirabol) and he knows a lot of family history. (Fort Wingate was located at San Rafael before it was relocated to its present location.) Patricia at the NRCS office knows him and said Antonio preaches at her church and other churches. She said she isn’t even sure he is still Catholic. He has a very nice new home on the property and the wine tasting room used to be a home built for his mother-in-law. In the garage he located his winery. It consists of 4 stainless steel vats and he was making wine from last fall. It takes about 6 months of fermenting. The wine press was outside covered with a tarp. The grapes are picked by friends and volunteers that come from as far as Santa Fe. He has no harvesting cost except a free lunch. The grapes are pressed and the juice is pumped into the vats, he throws in some yeast, and waits 6 months. The wine is bottled and labeled by hand. He has won some first place awards for the wine. His web site is guadalupevineyards.com.
He sells all the wine at the site or by mail for $30 a bottle, or $300 per case. He makes 300 cases per year ($90,000) from 2 acres. He is planning to plant 2 more aces in the next few years. He is located at the mouth of San Jose Canyon from which there is always a breeze so frost isn’t a problem except below 28 degrees. In front of his house is a pond he built that is about 40 feet in diameter and 4 ½ feet deep. It is filled with water from a spring in the canyon. He has 8 hours of water each week from an acequia (Spanish for small irrigation district). New Mexico has very strict laws to protect the water rights of acequias. His water right was given to him by a family member. The vines are planted 5 feet apart in rows 8 feet apart. A poly pipe, supported by a wire with 2 GPM emitters spaced l8” on each side of the plant waters the plants. He applies 48 gallon of water to each plant each week. He said the vines need to be stressed in order to make good grapes. Poor soil is the best for wine grapes. He learned all he knows from reading books, going to seminars, and being “humble” and asking questions. He said Concord grapes would do very well in this country because they can with stand sub-zero temperatures. He is the same elevation as the ranch. He said we could sell a bottle of boutique grape juices for $8.
